Trouble with a schematic

[DastarD]

Hi,

I used to have a active bass but the circuit broke so a good friend of mine converted it to passive.
Since my bass (1st gen. Cort GB74) has so much knobs and switches, I thought that every knop and switch should be used.

There are 2 pickups, one bridge humbucker and a single coil for the neck.
The pickups have a 3 way switch so you can toggle between the pickups.
The bridge pickup has a coil tap.
Both pickups have a volume and a tone pot.

So far so good but here is the problem, there is one switch left, so I deceided to make that a series/parallel switch.

Everything is connected and the series/parallel switch works, with the pickup selecter switch in the middle, like it should.
But when I switch to the bridge pickup only, the signal is gone, so it acts as a kill switch.
When I switch to the neck pickup only, the bridge and the neck are on.

Unfortunately I do not have a schematic to show, my friend who created this said, that this is the only way it could work. Hopefully someone here can shed some light on this.

 

[dwizum]

A schematic would be really helpful. But generally the combo you're describing is challenging at best. When you put two pickups in series, the method(s) you were using to control them (volume, three way switch) in parallel won't behave the same. Generally the series circuit relies on the bridge pickup's signal path.

 

[DastarD]

I am trying to get my hands on the schematic he used, if I have one, I will post it.

 

[E2942]

If you're trying to wire it up with FIVE holes, use a Gibson Les Paul or SG wiring diagram.

 

[XLunacy]

With your current configuration you have 6 combinations, but only 4 (at best) will be useful. Would a solution involving 2 on/on switches be acceptable ? Something like one switch to choose between single pickup or two pickup mode, and another switch to either choose the pickup in single mode, or between series and parallel in two pickup mode ? So you'd have 4 options: bridge solo, neck solo, both series, both parallel.

 

[dwizum]

Series/parallel between two separate pickups is always a headache if you have other controls, especially if they're complicated (i.e. a pickup select or individual volumes). Personally, I feel like a two pickup series/parallel only makes sense if you have a single volume control otherwise, but other people will disagree with that I'm sure.

Instead of series/parallel between the two pickups, I'd do a series/parallel switch just on the one humbucker. Then you can get two different tones out of it, both humbucking, and you don't have to worry about how it alters the way the other controls function.

And with two tone controls, I'd do different caps on them, so they're both useful all the time, instead of using the same cap and basically duplicating their functions.

I lost count in your original post of how many holes you have. If you have 6 holes, for me it would be something like two volumes, two tones, a pickup select, and a series/parallel on the humbucker.

 

[DastarD]

This is an overview I made how I wanted it to be connected.

This is the wiring as far as I can see it:


neck pickup:

black -> earth
black -> volume potmeter (same as the push/pull volume pot)
white -> serial switch

bridge pickup:

blue -> push/pull volume
red -> push/pull volume
black -> earth
white -> serial switch